∞∞∞
A kel'taite, here? The name jumps into her mind of its own bidding. It should not be here. It doesn't belong to this world. What does this signify? If a kel'taite is here, it must have been sent by the Mar'gah'thor. Blind! She has been so blind to not see the possibility; all of this has been no accident. The kel'taite was sent to ensure no thought or memory of these events ever get off this world. She can't let that happen!
The kel'taite moves too fast, and its blow breaks several of her ribs. The last thing she sees before hitting a tree is one of those primitive bipeds attacking the creature with what appears to be a stick. What an incredibly stupid thing to do…
She wakes up when she hears the kel'taite scream in rage. Did that primitive manage to hurt it? If nothing else, it has bought her some time. She gets her feet under her and stands unsteadily, bracing herself against a tree. Her symbiots summarize her injuries for her. Four broken ribs, a skull fracture, torn knee, and several internal organs bleeding. All things considered, it could have been worse. Her symbiots pump her full of stimulants and painkillers, giving her enough clarity to stand without losing consciousness again.
She sees the beast battling what looks like a young galan, filthy and wearing what appears to be animal skins, holding a primitive stone tool in his hand. The kel'taite is injured, it's right eye bleeding profusely. The juvenile is doing far better than she would have ever expected, but it can't last long. Kel'taites are one of the few creatures that can effectively destroy a galan's unitary. Its digestive tract is powerful enough to destroy not just her flesh but also her symbiotic nanites and other embeds, leaving nothing to regenerate.
The beast charges through the trees and surprises the primitive with its strength. He really was no match. She pulls out her wide-band analyzer, reconfigures its optical pathways at the speed of thought, and sights along the instrument as the beast lifts its head. She fires a coherent beam through the animal's brain dropping it dead in its tracks. This drains the entire power pack on her instrument. The emergency configuration had leapt unbidden into her mind from her on-board storage, just as had the knowledge of where to aim to find the kel'taite's brain. Yet another gift from her embedded memories. Just how often do things like this happen?
She leans against the tree for a moment, catching her breath. Hopefully they only sent one kel'taite after her. If it wasn't for the unfortunate soul up the hill, it would have easily finished her. She isn't afraid of losing this body, she'd simply be reloaded into another unitary grown in her home. No, the important thing is getting the knowledge of this attack back to her people. They must be warned. And the Mar'gah'thor will have to be held accountable for this crime!
There do not appear to be any more creatures in the vicinity, so she decides to head up the hill to see to the young primitive who'd taken on a kel'taite with a stick and a stone. She still can't believe how much he'd been able to achieve with such primitive tools. It takes her a bit to reach the copse where the primitive and the beast lay. He is still alive, although the kel'taite is quite dead; the coherent light burned clear through its skull, right through its brain, and then sliced up through the top of its skull as the beast fell. Good thing she only needed one shot, because it'll take her tool the better part of two days to scavenge enough energy from the environment to recharge. The primitive male is unconscious, which is probably for the best. His injuries are substantial, and no doubt life threatening. He will need immediate medical aid, shelter, water, and probably food if he has any chance at survival. What to do?
The best outcome might be to let him expire. Even if he can be saved, she isn't certain how well he'll heal. He could be crippled for life, which for him will be so fleeting anyway. Yet, he had instinctively reacted to the beast when he could have fled—all to save a stranger, someone he knew nothing about. An act of altruism, the hallmark of all sentient species, and something the base Mar'gah'thor lack completely. It is obvious in hindsight that he'd been following her. He must have been attracted to the area to explore the crash site. She should have foreseen such an eventuality, but she didn't even know any indigenous people were in the area. She wonders how she must have seemed to him. She takes a deep breath and lets it out as a long, exasperated sigh.
She begins to uncover him, having decided that she is not capable of abandoning a noble creature, primitive or not, without trying to make amends. As she pulls the tree branches off him, she becomes even more confused. He appears to be galanen. He is almost exactly like one of her people. Every feature, every bone, the same. How can this be? He appears to be little more than a child, though it is hard to tell. She pulls from her bio memories formed while studying for this mission that males of this species rarely live beyond about 40 local years. An infant among her people. He has facial hair, and his hair is blond, not gray, so he is probably considered mature, but not aged—late teens, maybe 20? So young, so terribly young. The similarities between their people are uncanny; why did she not notice this before the mission?
The first thing to do is assess his injuries. She pushes her hood back, painfully kneels down, and begins to examine him. The kel'taite clawed him very badly across his right side, but the wounds do not appear to have penetrated his chest cavity. Several ribs appear broken, a couple badly. She can't rule out internal injuries. If a rib has punctured an organ, there isn't much she can do about it. He is likely concussed, but that is judging primarily from symptoms. She has no way to tell for sure. She twists her lips in a wry smile; not only are their physiologies similar, they share nearly the same injuries. She will recover in a couple days thanks to her symbiots; he will probably die, unless he is treated by the galanen.
First things first, she needs to see what she can do about his bleeding. It is profuse, but doesn't appear to be arterial, which gives her a chance. There isn't much to work with. He appears to be wearing multiple layers of animal skins. As much as she dislikes handling the remains of once living creatures, she starts tearing strips from the outer garment—only finishing what the kel'taite had started, as it is thoroughly tattered already. She finds a stone tool still clutched in his right hand. Volcanic glass lapped into a very sharp edge, cunningly mounted onto a carved handle made of some hard, organic material—well-crafted and remarkably efficient. She uses it to cut bindings for his chest wounds. It's the best she can do now.
He moans, and his eyes flick open, panicky, to take in his surroundings until they settle upon her face. Her stares at her, nearly delirious, with pale blue eyes. He makes sounds, but she can't understand anything he says. She doesn't think even the collective has enough information about his people to understand much, if any, of their language variations. And she has no way to connect with him. She finds this very unsettling; he looks so much like a galan that she naturally reaches out for his mind and finds… nothing. It is like he isn’t there.
He flails about with his left hand, looking for something, until he pulls what looks like a stone ax from beneath a tree. He stops moving when he sees the kel’taite laying there, dead. It is a couple moments before he looks back at her, a question clearly in his eyes. She lifts her depleted wide-band analyzer. “Yes, I killed it with this.” He has no way of knowing what she just tried to share with him, but he seems to understand the gist.
Suddenly, she feels a wave of heat wash over her. Instinctively, she pulls him up and heads up the hill towards a pile of rocks. They don't have much time. Unfortunately, she is on his right side, so their injured sides bash into each other. Her pain moderators help her cope, but he gasps, grits his teeth, and tries to stay conscious. He must've felt the heat too, because he doesn't try to resist her dragging him up the hill and seems to fully share her sense of urgency. The heat grows quickly. They make it to the rocks and duck behind them before the thermal oscillator fail-safe within the kel'taite fully burns through the carcass. The Mar'gah'thor must have implanted the device in the beast to remove any evidence of their meddling. They were lucky it didn't trigger sooner. Perhaps
whatever they did to cut her off from the collective also keeps them from being in remote contact with the beast? It must have had an internal trigger, perhaps sensing when it died, or its body temperature dropped a certain amount.
The sky flashes bluish-white, and they can feel the heat reflected off the taller trees. Those nearest the corpse begin to smoke and blacken. It is set at a very high temperature, designed to disintegrate the matter closest to it quickly, and fully, leaving nothing behind but unidentifiable ash. It consumes itself with its last bit of energy, its light quickly extinguished. Everything grows quiet, except for the primitive's labored breathing.
He is leaning into her side heavily, fighting hard to stay conscious. He is quite a bit shorter than she but quite stocky. They probably have nearly the same mass, and right now his is lying heavily on her broken ribs. Zaleria turns to look at his face, which has grown very pale. She grits her teeth, determined that he should not die because of her failures, her mistakes. That must not happen, she thinks fiercely. The only reason the kel'taite was there was because of her. She does not want the life of a sentient weighing on her essence. She lays him gently on the ground. He reaches up for her, hesitantly. She pauses. He points to his chest and says, “AaahCheee.” She thinks, “What does that mean?” He points at himself again and says, “Aaah Chee.” A name. His name is Achi.
She moistens her lips, points to him, and says “ackkt…” She thinks a little spittle may have come out. It's been ages since she last tried to speak, and she hasn't had a drink of water all day. She grimaces, clears her throat and says, “Achi.” He nods. She points at herself “Zaleria.” He points to her and echoes the name. She nods and smiles. It has been a long time since she last used oral communication. When all else fails…
Zaleria takes a moment to reflect on her situation. The local initiation of the thermal oscillator may represent good news. If the Mar'gah'thor couldn't track the beast, they probably can't track her. They must've sent it to the crater once they probably visually observed that the waverider had survived the impact. Would they risk directly interfering in a garden world inhabited by primitive sentients? They would not have a moral qualm, for they lack the concept, but they would weigh the potential repercussions. As it currently stands, they are the most likely candidates for putting that creature on this world, but she lacks hard evidence, and it is unlikely the Mar'gah'thor will be stupid enough to provide it. Will they try to send another kel'taite? Perhaps a team of hunters? There is little she can do if that occurs; she is out of options. Perhaps they'll cut their losses and depart before the galanen arrive. She wonders how long the Mar'gah'thor assess it'll take her cohort to enter the system looking for her? She sighs heavily. She can do nothing to influence their actions or deal with another attack. What she can do is construct a shelter to try and mitigate her growing list of failures by keeping Achi alive in case her cohort arrives before the Mar'gah'thor's next attack.
She pulls ideas from her embeds. She can construct a rough structure by leaning some felled branches and saplings against the other side of the rocks they are hiding behind. Then she can build a fire and reflect its heat off the side of the rocks. The thermal oscillator will probably make that part easier, as she is certain there are small fires burning in what was left of the copse of trees. It isn't much, but it will have to do; there is no way she can move him—Achi, she reminds herself—any appreciable distance. She quickly gets to work, trying not to make her own injuries worse. This is mostly for practical expedience; she isn't concerned about any long-term effects from her injuries, but she needs to maintain at least her current physical abilities for the next couple days if she is going to help Achi survive.
As she expected, the beast and almost all the vegetation in its immediate vicinity have been reduced to a fine powdery ash. Beyond that zone, however, several of the trees and much of the dead-fall have caught fire, but they are blazing fitfully at best, given the damp conditions and the short duration of their exposure to the heat. She brings several branches to place in a gap in the rocks and gets a decent fire going. She then quickly constructs a lean-to from dead fall and green boughs she cuts off using Achi's stone ax, which is also a remarkably efficient tool. Finally, she gathers as much dry wood as she can in the failing light, and with her flagging strength. Hopefully it'll be enough to see them through the night. Achi has watched her working for a while, as intently as he could, but he is slipping into and out of consciousness. She wonders again what he thinks of all this.
She helps him sit, from their respective good sides this time, leaning in to him while he leans on her. She tries not to gag, because he smells terrible. He is unwashed, covered in gore, and wearing animal skins that reek of death. She tries to hide her revulsion but isn't sure she can completely pull it off. Still, she wishes there is more she can do for him; she doesn't want him to die because of what her presence in the system appears to have caused. They sit there, embracing as it were, for a few minutes. Both amazed at what they've so far managed to survive. He sees the lean-to and seems to understand what must happen next. She supports him as best she can as he crawls over and into the shelter. She finds an animal skin tied to his belt that has been sewn shut and has a narrow mouth with a wood stopper. It appears to hold water. He also has a pouch with some dried flesh—probably for food—and other items in it. She lays this next to him. She takes the water skin down the hill to the stream and fills it. She also scoops water with her hands and drinks as much as she can. It is growing dark, and it is going to be a long night.
∞∞∞
Achi is feverish from the concussion, and his ribs burn like fire. He still doesn't know what happened. He's survived, and Zaleria—that appears to be her name—seems to have saved them both somehow. The beast was very clearly dead, and she seems to have been the cause of it. The wound through its head was strange; he can't understand how it could have been made. But it was wickedly lethal. And then the thing just burst into flames, with a white light brighter than the sun. Inexplicable. If he was in any less pain, he'd be more afraid. But he isn't. He can tell somehow that she means him no harm. But she is so very strange and displays a resilience he has never seen before.
They are both badly injured. He isn't sure he'll survive, but she seems to be doing fine—demonstrating remarkable strength and endurance considering her injuries look to be just as bad as his. She built this shelter, built a fire, and fetched water. She seems to be gaining strength, while he is fading. And she seems to know it. He's caught her looking at him with concern in her eyes, like a mother watching a dying child, and there is something else—frustration, guilt, a hint of anger? Perhaps.
She seems to be human just like him, but extremely odd. She is wearing clothes, but he's never seen or heard of anything like them. She had pulled back what seemed to be a skin-tight hood and revealed that she actually has hair. It is black and straight but turns to purple near the ends. It falls down to her shoulders, but she keeps it well combed and neat, using it to frame her expressive face. Her skin is a golden tan, almost brown, and her eyes… Her kind eyes are angled slightly and a brilliant violet, matching the ends of her hair as well as her lips, which are full and constantly shifting with her emotions. He's never seen anyone like her. She is easily the most beautiful person he's ever seen and appears to be nearly the same age as Achi, except for when he looks deep into those eyes. He can't say why, but she feels old. Ancient.
She also doesn't understand a thing he says, which makes finding answers to his many questions very difficult. He wants to know who she is, and why she is here, and what happened to make the huge hole in the ground. But he is now getting chilled and starting to shiver, so she lays down behind him and wraps her arms around him to add her body heat to the fire. Her breasts press firmly into his back as she pulls him close to her, throwing a leg over his to ward off the chill, night air. He begins to feel her warmth spread through him, motherly. If he felt any better he'd find that frustrating. They are so similar in so ma
ny ways, but she is totally alien.
Why did he intervene? Why did he come this way? Some part of him is satisfied that she will at least survive this beastly encounter, and another part of him doesn't know why he should care. But he does. She seems important. He is just a simple man, and one less man in the world doesn't seem to be important. If he passes over, he'll be with Chare, and that is fine. Zaleria's warmth is very comforting, and he soon loses himself in her embrace as sleep overtakes him.
∞∞∞
A little before dawn, she feels the collective again, like a switch has been turned on. One second there is nothing, the next, everything. She quickly passes her knowledge to the collective, and then takes a moment to reconnect with her essence. It is strange. She's been separated from her essence for only a short while, but there has already been substantial divergence. She's experienced so much on this planet in such a short period. But she doesn't want to stay here any longer than needed, especially as it forces her to confront her growing list of failures.
She failed to identify that she'd been attacked. Her graviton fields hadn't failed; they'd been carefully and expertly neutralized. She isn't sure how, but the Mar'gah'thor must have also found a way to cut off her connection to the collective. That will have to be investigated. Even after these two clear signs of danger, she'd failed to take precautions against an ambush and further failed to react quickly enough to neutralize the threat. She failed to avoid contact with the local primitive sentients. Sentient. Achi. This latter fact troubles her greatly because it may cost him his life, and his altruism is the only reason her knowledge of the attack has been preserved for the collective's study. She shares with her cohort that this must not be allowed to occur. They will not arrive until about mid-morning, local time; hopefully, he will last until then.
Through the Singularity Page 3